The National Rifle Association of Great Britain was founded at a meeting in the Thatched House Tavern on St. James' in London with Lord Herbert, the Liberal Secretary of War, as its first president. Initially influenced by the volunteer movement which sprang up in 1859 after tension arose with France, it held its first competitive shooting meeting on Wimbledon Common on July 2, 1860. Queen Victoria fired the first shot. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
George Henry Townsend, The Manual of Dates: A Dictionary of Reference .... (London: Frederick Warne, 1877), 667.